Wyeth’s David Jones Joins GPS to Launch Rapid Microbial Analytic System

PharmaManufacturing.com
10/03/2005

Genomic Profiling Systems (GPS) announced Sept. 26 that David L. Jones, Ph.D., has joined their company in the capacity of Director of Technical Services. Jones comes to Bedford, Mass.-based GPS from Wyeth Biopharma in Dublin where he has been Manager of Microbial Test Technologies since 2003.

Jones will be applying his world-renowned expertise in applied microbiology to the commercialization of the Company's initial product offering, the Growth Direct System, for rapid pharmaceutical microbiology quality control. He will head up a team of microbiologists to support the evaluation and validation of this revolutionary system that will allow pharmaceutical companies to save costs and improve manufacturing efficiencies — in accordance with the FDA's Process Analytical Technology initiative — by significantly reducing the time required to test for microbial contaminants. The Growth Direct System is scheduled for release in early 2006.

According to Bob Linke, GPS president and CEO, "We could not be more pleased to have an individual of Dr. Jones' caliber and reputation in our organization at a pivotal moment in our history. As our company is poised to transform rapid microbiology quality control to save pharmaceutical manufacturers time and money, the requirement for an individual with experience on both the end-user and manufacturer side is essential. This is what we have found in Dr. Jones, who brings years of stellar achievement to his role at GPS. Dr. Jones' name has become synonymous with the field of rapid microbial analysis. As a contributing author to seminal publications such as Laboratory Validation, A Practioner's Guide and the European Journal of Parenteral Sciences, for which he was awarded the medal for best scientific article of the year in 1999, his reputation in the niche of rapid microbiology has been solidified. We look to Dr. Jones as the critical link to implementation of Growth Direct technology in major pharmaceutical companies throughout the world."

Jones ushered other rapid industrial microbiology tests to the market while at Chemunex SA in Paris from 1997 to 2002 and developed novel clinical assay technology while with Anagen Ltd. in the U.K. from 1990 to 1996. At Unipath Ltd., he worked on the development of the Clearblue line in the 1980s that became the standard in point-of-care pregnancy testing in today's products. Dr. Jones holds a graduate degree from Brunel University in applied biochemistry and obtained his doctorate from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London in the field of steroid endocrinology.

"I look forward to the opportunity to apply the principles of validation that I have elaborated for the pharmaceutical industry to the introduction of the Growth Direct System," Jones commented. Technology that can enable earlier detection of contaminants will have far reaching quality and economic benefits for the producers of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products worldwide."

For more information on Genomic Profiling Systems, go to www.genprosys.com.